Ru Freeman

Ru Freeman's new novel is On Sal Mal Lane.

From her Q & A with Tania James at Fiction Writers Review:

Tania James: I suspect your family was a literary one. Was writing encouraged by your parents? What books were you drawn to in your youth?

Ru Freeman: I grew up with the idea that words—read, written, uttered aloud—were important. They were the meat, muscles, bones of persuasion. Everything revolved around how well we could handle words. My mother taught English literature and Greek and Roman classics (history and literature in translation), and my father—a civil servant—also wrote poetry. My older brothers and I, therefore, took to language and writing the way the children of mountain homesteaders take to running about in tall grass without fear of ticks and rattlesnakes.

As a child I read whatever I could find. We weren’t wealthy enough (in financial terms, anyway) to buy new books easily, so most of what I read was borrowed or gifted to us through, oddly enough, an American initiative (the Asia Foundation), or bought for a song from a Soviet initiative (The People’s Publishing House). There’s more on my childhood and books here in the Fall/Winter 2010 issue of Pebble Lake Review.

Did you dabble in music as well, like Suren, the eldest child of the Herath family?

Yes, I played the piano—as did my brothers. They also played the violin and my oldest brother—much like Suren—was a gifted musician who could play any instrument he picked up. For me it was mostly the piano, a little guitar (that my oldest brother taught me), and....[read on]

Visit Ru Freeman's website and blog.

Writers Read: Ru Freeman (August 2009).

--Marshal Zeringue